recommend me your teleconferencing software
April 19, 2020 3:53 PM Subscribe
What teleconferencing software can support a weekly call among 4-6 people whose special-snowflake constraints include but are not limited to a mixture of Apple and PC telephone, no telephone service, and extremely poor tech literacy?
I'd like to arrange weekly teleconferences with my family.
We tried using WeChat today, and it was terrible: hard to take turns because of multiple seconds of lag, hard to understand each other because of weird audio artifacts including inconsistent volume and multiple overlapping echoes. (Nobody was on speakerphone.)
What we want:
1. Runs on both Apple and Linux telephones.
2. Runs over wifi rather than telephone service. Some of us don't have telephone service for our telephones.
3. Extremely simple setup. To give you an idea of the tech literacy here, this last call ended with my parents continuing to talk with each other unaware that they had not hung up, and me removing the battery from my telephone because I couldn't figure out any way to hang up.
4. Good call quality. Intelligible speech, in Chinese if that matters, with low enough latency to allow relatively natural turn-taking, etc. Most of us are used to POTS on copper.
5. Doesn't have to be secure, but can't be laughably insecure. So, like, nothing where the developers are themselves circumventing your security.
6. Cheap or free. It should be cheaper than buying me a cell phone plan and literally teleconferencing.
Note that I really mean teleconferencing, not videoconferencing. Mumble would be a fine choice if I thought I could get my parents to install it.
I'd like to arrange weekly teleconferences with my family.
We tried using WeChat today, and it was terrible: hard to take turns because of multiple seconds of lag, hard to understand each other because of weird audio artifacts including inconsistent volume and multiple overlapping echoes. (Nobody was on speakerphone.)
What we want:
1. Runs on both Apple and Linux telephones.
2. Runs over wifi rather than telephone service. Some of us don't have telephone service for our telephones.
3. Extremely simple setup. To give you an idea of the tech literacy here, this last call ended with my parents continuing to talk with each other unaware that they had not hung up, and me removing the battery from my telephone because I couldn't figure out any way to hang up.
4. Good call quality. Intelligible speech, in Chinese if that matters, with low enough latency to allow relatively natural turn-taking, etc. Most of us are used to POTS on copper.
5. Doesn't have to be secure, but can't be laughably insecure. So, like, nothing where the developers are themselves circumventing your security.
6. Cheap or free. It should be cheaper than buying me a cell phone plan and literally teleconferencing.
Note that I really mean teleconferencing, not videoconferencing. Mumble would be a fine choice if I thought I could get my parents to install it.
Here's a roundup that might help: The best alternatives to Zoom for videoconferencing
I would give Google Hangouts or Whereby a look, but I don't know if they hit all your wanted features.
posted by bluecore at 5:28 PM on April 19, 2020 [1 favorite]
I would give Google Hangouts or Whereby a look, but I don't know if they hit all your wanted features.
posted by bluecore at 5:28 PM on April 19, 2020 [1 favorite]
That's a great roundup, bluecore.
I, too, have been navigating this issue with video conferencing. NO ZOOM! What I've been using as my metric for "is this technically easy" is: can my mum, who is fairly technically savvy but not confident and sometimes needs help from us, organise her friends (with less technical competence) to video conference without us helping.
Google Hangouts isn't a great contender because it's fiddly and requires you to have a google log in. It works, but you have to be willing to trouble shoot a little, and that is a deal breaker.
Webex also fails the "I don't have an institution with technical support" test. (Works great at work. My mum trying it- not so much)
The one I'm leaning towards at the moment is Jitsi. I don't have huge experience with it yet, but my mum was able to successfully use it to video conference with her friends. You don't need a log in, you just need the app. It works on computer, android and apple phones.
It's also open source, which makes me feel better about it.
Hope that helps!
posted by freethefeet at 6:19 PM on April 19, 2020
I, too, have been navigating this issue with video conferencing. NO ZOOM! What I've been using as my metric for "is this technically easy" is: can my mum, who is fairly technically savvy but not confident and sometimes needs help from us, organise her friends (with less technical competence) to video conference without us helping.
Google Hangouts isn't a great contender because it's fiddly and requires you to have a google log in. It works, but you have to be willing to trouble shoot a little, and that is a deal breaker.
Webex also fails the "I don't have an institution with technical support" test. (Works great at work. My mum trying it- not so much)
The one I'm leaning towards at the moment is Jitsi. I don't have huge experience with it yet, but my mum was able to successfully use it to video conference with her friends. You don't need a log in, you just need the app. It works on computer, android and apple phones.
It's also open source, which makes me feel better about it.
Hope that helps!
posted by freethefeet at 6:19 PM on April 19, 2020
Could you get a free google voice number and teleconference with that?
posted by batter_my_heart at 7:11 PM on April 19, 2020
posted by batter_my_heart at 7:11 PM on April 19, 2020
I've been doing a weekly teleconference on my iPhone (just regular phone, not FaceTime) People call my number normally. For the first person, I just answer. For the rest, when it rings, I press "hold and accept" and then when the connection is made, I press "merge". It can handle five lines (six people). As I said, everyone else just calls me normally so this is super simple.
posted by metahawk at 8:13 PM on April 19, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by metahawk at 8:13 PM on April 19, 2020 [4 favorites]
Freeconferencecall.com does what you want. I’ve used it for a number of calls.
These calls are not free for every mobile provider (T-Mobile, for example).
Line can work, and it's popular in the Chinese-speaking world.
posted by Hollywood Upstairs Medical College at 8:49 PM on April 19, 2020
These calls are not free for every mobile provider (T-Mobile, for example).
Line can work, and it's popular in the Chinese-speaking world.
posted by Hollywood Upstairs Medical College at 8:49 PM on April 19, 2020
Purely voice? Ringcentral, or maybe Skype for Business/Microsoft Teams (I think they're being merged at the worst possible time.) They also have RingMeetings, but that's whitelabeled Zoom. You can dial in to a RingMeeting though, at least on the paid plan, so it might work and with less setup than their regular voice solution.
Or, if you want to go old school and have an "I won't get fired so long as it works" budget, call AT&T or Verizon. They will be happy to sell you a legacy conference bridge at some insane legacy rate.
If you have internal IT, you can also ask them if they are comfortable standing up a Linux-based Asterisk based PBX and the required SIP origination/termination. Elastix is a popular distribution. Then you can set up your own conference. Someone will have to think about available lines, though.
If quick and dirty is acceptable, then you can use a Discord voice channel.
posted by snuffleupagus at 9:39 PM on April 19, 2020
Or, if you want to go old school and have an "I won't get fired so long as it works" budget, call AT&T or Verizon. They will be happy to sell you a legacy conference bridge at some insane legacy rate.
If you have internal IT, you can also ask them if they are comfortable standing up a Linux-based Asterisk based PBX and the required SIP origination/termination. Elastix is a popular distribution. Then you can set up your own conference. Someone will have to think about available lines, though.
If quick and dirty is acceptable, then you can use a Discord voice channel.
posted by snuffleupagus at 9:39 PM on April 19, 2020
Someone will have to think about available lines
For people dialing in from the phone network, that is. People able and willing to use a softphone registered to the PBX, or call in via SIP wouldn't require extra line capacity.
posted by snuffleupagus at 9:47 PM on April 19, 2020
For people dialing in from the phone network, that is. People able and willing to use a softphone registered to the PBX, or call in via SIP wouldn't require extra line capacity.
posted by snuffleupagus at 9:47 PM on April 19, 2020
I just now realized you wanted teleconferencing but I posted a link to a videoconferencing roundup. Sorry about that!
posted by bluecore at 3:14 AM on April 20, 2020
posted by bluecore at 3:14 AM on April 20, 2020
We use the free-as-in-beer version of Skype for this. It works OK. My instance runs on a Debian laptop; most of the rest of the family is on Windows but there's also one Mac and a couple of phones.
posted by flabdablet at 6:22 AM on April 20, 2020
posted by flabdablet at 6:22 AM on April 20, 2020
Purely voice? Ringcentral, or maybe Skype for Business/Microsoft Teams (I think they're being merged at the worst possible time.) They also have RingMeetings, but that's whitelabeled Zoom. You can dial in to a RingMeeting though, at least on the paid plan, so it might work and with less setup than their regular voice solution.
RingCentral is also offering their own, new videoconferencing product called RingCentral Video. This is not based on the Zoom SDK that they do their OEM-relationship for RingCentral Meetings. RCV is webRTC-based, so you don't have to download anything. Chrome and Edge79 support right now.
Note also that if you get RingCentral service, each user gets - in addition to the video meetings - their own audio conferencing bridge with up to 1000 attendees per conference.
posted by Thistledown at 7:07 AM on April 20, 2020
RingCentral is also offering their own, new videoconferencing product called RingCentral Video. This is not based on the Zoom SDK that they do their OEM-relationship for RingCentral Meetings. RCV is webRTC-based, so you don't have to download anything. Chrome and Edge79 support right now.
Note also that if you get RingCentral service, each user gets - in addition to the video meetings - their own audio conferencing bridge with up to 1000 attendees per conference.
posted by Thistledown at 7:07 AM on April 20, 2020
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posted by Kriesa at 4:13 PM on April 19, 2020 [1 favorite]